Unitary metallic parts may be fabricated by forging and/or machining a solid block of material. The practice of machining blocks, plates or other forms of blanks may be both time consuming and expensive because a relatively large percentage of the blank may become waste material in the form of machining chips. Fabricating unitary metallic parts using die forging techniques may also be expensive and involve long lead times because of the need to fabricate unique dies for each part. These existing processes may have other issues, including failure to achieve maximum material properties from precipitation hardened aluminum alloys, high residual stresses in precipitation hardened aluminum alloys and/or a requirement for larger than desired quantities of relatively high cost aluminum alloys.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus of forging parts that may reduce material usage, and provide improved mechanical properties with lower cost, including reduced tooling costs.